December 10 in LGBTQ History

1924: Henry Gerber, a German-born immigrant, receives a charter from the state of Illinois for a nonprofit corporation in Chicago named the Society for Human Rights. It becomes the earliest documented gay rights organization in the United States. Though the organization was intended to be an American equivalent of contemporary German LGBTQ emancipation groups, Gerber is arrested soon after and the society falls apart.

1982: Panic over the nation’s blood supply sets in after a baby in California becomes sick following blood transfusions. (A donor is later discovered to have AIDS.)

1989: More than 5,000 activists show up in front of New York’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral to protest the Catholic Church’s policies on homosexuality and AIDS.

1990: Colorado Governor Roy Romer issues an executive order prohibiting sexual orientation discrimination in the public sector.

1997: The Constitution Review Committee in Florida votes 6–2 to reject adding sexual orientation as a criterion for protection in the state constitution.

2005: In Houston, Texas, businesswoman Sue Lovell wins an at-large vacancy on the city council, joining city controller Annise Parker as the first two openly gay persons to be elected to office in the city of Houston.

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